1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus, such as a substrate inspection apparatus, a substrate manufacturing apparatus or the like, and a substrate processing system provided with the same.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-141415, filed May 11, 2004, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
In a plant where semiconductor wafers are manufactured, the semiconductor wafers are generally transported by cassettes that are capable of housing a plurality of semiconductor wafers between substrate processing apparatuses, such as a substrate manufacturing apparatus for manufacturing the semiconductor wafers and a substrate inspection apparatus for inspecting the semiconductor wafers. Meanwhile, in semiconductor manufacturing processes, there is a process for the semiconductor wafer to be extracted from the cassette to be transported to another cassette. That is, when the semiconductor wafer is subjected to, for example, wet heat processing, there is a case in which the wafer is transported from a cassette for general purpose use to a cassette having chemical resistance and thermal resistance as a prepreparation for those processes.
A dedicated transportation apparatus is conventionally used for substrate transportation between cassettes (refer to, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. H09-162257).